Prestoea acuminata (Willd.) H.E.Moore

The Useful Plants of Boyacá project

Distribution

Native from Colombia.

Ecology

Alt. 1500 - 2650 m.

General Description

Stems solitary or cespitose and then with 2-12 stems per plant, erect or slightly leaning, (3-)6-15 m tall, 4-20 cm diam., usually gray with lichens, often with a cone of roots visible at the base. Leaves 4-10, spreading or erect; sheath closed for 1/3-½ its length and forming a partial crownshaft, 26-80(-108) cm long, green, dark green, purplish, violet, or reddish brown, densely to moderately covered with appressed, brown, fimbriate scales; petiole 0-30(-60) cm long, densely whitish brown tomentose adaxially, usually glabrous abaxially, glabrescent; rachis (0.6-)1.1-2.6 m long, with tomentum like that of petiole; pinnae 30-60 per side, regularly spaced and stiffly spreading in the same horizontal plane, seldom erect, subopposite or alternate, linear-lanceolate, coriaceous, with prominent midvein adaxially and abaxially and with several prominent lateral veins, the midvein with ramenta abaxially; basal pinna 39-69 x 0.5-2 cm; middle pinnae (0.3-)0.6-1.2 m x (2-)3-6.5 cm; apical pinna 13-34 x 0.5-2.5 cm. Inflorescences corymbose, infrafoliar at anthesis; peduncle 3-20 cm long, 1-3(-4) cm diam. at peduncular bract scar, terete or slightly dorsiventrally compressed; prophyll 23-51 cm long, 4-6(-12) cm diam.; peduncular bract 63-98 cm long including a 3 cm long umbo, to 6(-12) cm diam., almost terete, often with other incomplete bracts present distally; rachis (17-)40-85 cm long; rachillae 23-117, 18-74 cm long proximally, 9.5-23 cm long distally, to 6 mm diam. in fruit, each subtended by a small bract or sometimes the proximal few rachillae with bracts to 6 cm long, almost glabrous or typically with scattered to numerous short crustose or granular hairs, occasionally intermixed with a few longer, flexuous, branched hairs or sometimes with a dense covering of branched hairs; flowers in triads proximally, paired or solitary staminate distally; triad bracteole low, apiculate; first flower bracteole obscure, second and third flower bracteoles ± equal, apiculate, 0.3-0.5 mm long; staminate flowers 4-6 mm long, either sessile or on short, flattened pedicels; sepals deltate to narrowly triangular, 1.5-2.5 mm long, gibbous; petals ovate or lanceolate, 3-5.5 mm long, white or pink with purple apex; stamens arranged on a short receptacle; filaments 1.5- 2.5 mm long, flattened; anthers 2-3.5 mm long; pistillode 2-3 mm long, trifid at apex; pistillate flowers 2.5-4 mm long; sepals shallowly triangular or depressed-ovate, 2-4 mm long; petals shallowly triangular to depressed ovate, 2-4 mm long; staminodes deltate or digitate. Fruits globose, rarely ovoid or obovoid, 1-1.2(-1.8) cm diam., the stigmatic remains lateral; epicarp purple-black, sparsely and minutely tuberculate; seeds globose, 0.8-1.4 cm diam.; endosperm ruminate; eophyll bifid. Understorey palm. Stems clustered, to 10 m tall, and 10 cm in diameter. Leaf sheaths partially closed, forming a crown shaft, this purple in mature palms; blade 1-2.5 m long; pinnae 30-80 on each side, below with brown scales on the midrib, terminally abrubtly narrowing into 3-5 cm long filamentous point, the central ones 60-100 cm long and 4-7 cm wide. Inflorescence with peduncle 3-20 cm long; rachis 40-80 cm long; branches 20-120, 20-70 cm long. Flower buds lilac. Fruits black, globose, 10-12 mm in diameter. Seedling leaves bifid.

Distribution

Widespread in the Antilles, Central America, and in the Andes from Colombia to Bolivia at 1000-2500 m elevation.

Bernal, R., G. Galeano, A. Rodríguez, H. Sarmiento y M. Gutiérrez. 2017. Nombres Comunes de las Plantas de Colombia. http://www.biovirtual.unal.edu.co/nombrescomunes/

Vernacular

palma colorada, palmicha, palmiche, palmiche colorado, palmicho, palmito

Bernal, R., Gradstein, S.R. & Celis, M. (eds.). 2015. Catálogo de plantas y líquenes de Colombia. Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá. http://catalogoplantasdecolombia.unal.edu.co

Distribution

Nativa en Colombia; Alt. 1500 - 2650 m.; Andes, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.

Morphology General Habit

Arbusto, árbol, palma cespitosa

Conservation

Preocupación Menor

Use Food

Food (García- Barriga 1975).

Use Materials

Materials (Instituto Humboldt 2014).

Use Materials Unspecified Materials Chemicals

Materials (State of the World's Plants 2016).